president obama got back today but no significant progress towards a deal. democrats and republicans are fighting about process and issues. republicans want democrats to come up with a new proposal. house republicans say sign on to their proposal, keeping tax ritz rates where they are. when it comes to this impasse, both sides have taken to blaming one another. >> the house of representatives is operating without the house of representative. it's being operated with a dictatorship of the speaker. not allowing the vast majority of the house represents to get what they want. if the 250 would be brought up, it would pass overwhelmingly. >> we wanted an agreement. but we had no takers. the phone never rang and so now here we are five days from the new year and we might finally start talking. >> even if democrats and republicans, their leadership and the president, were to strike a deal on the fiscal cliff, it will take a couple days for the senate to work through it, the house to work through it and right now we're only five days out before the billions of dolla